Newt-founded think tank brought in $55M

Newt Gingrich's various financial enterprises are getting closer scrutiny amid his poll surge, and the latest under the microscope is the Center for Health Transformation, which said in a statement today that it brought in $55 million over a decade, the WSJ is reporting.

In the statement, the group said "We do no lobbying, the WSJ says. It has a "charter membership" fee of $200,000 a year.

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Gingrich suggested in the last few days that voters may simply see his financial ventures - part of a sprawling but now-flattened enterprise once known informally as Newt Inc. - as proof that he could rival Mitt Romney in business skills. The downside is that people may see him as an inexorable creature of Washington, at a moment when everyone is running against the Capitol.